Ice, Ice Baby!

Rincewind42 from China [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsHave you ever seen an ice sculpture? Perhaps at a holiday party, on display at a hotel, or a wedding? Well, ice sculptures are pretty cool (pun very much intended!) pieces of art that you can’t actually treasure for a long time because … well … they melt! That’s why when the largest ice and snow festival takes place every year in Harbin, China, millions of people flock to China’s Ice City to check it out before the amazing ice displays disappear. But what exactly makes the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival one of the four largest in the world? Well, months before the opening of the festival, approximately 200,000 cubic meters of ice are cut out of the frozen Songhua River. Each block of ice, weighing an average of 1500 pounds each, is then dragged to the site of the festival where teams of artists from around the world work on creating their icy masterpieces. (If you’re wondering how much 200,000 cubic meters is exactly, just think about an Olympic-sized swimming pool and multiply that by eighty and that’s about how much ice was cut out of the Songhua River for this festival.) From a snow sculpture standing 108 feet tall and nearly 330 feet wide, to ice sculptures of magnificent castles and grand staircases, to a display of 2,019 snowmen all dressed up with all kinds of accessories, including flags from around the world, to slides made of ice (yes, you can actually slide down them!), it’s no wonder that millions of people from around the world visit this festival every year.

Have you ever been to an ice festival? Email us at editor@xyzanews.com with photos and captions!

It looks like you want to subscribe to Xyza.

That’s ok.

Hey there! Want more Xyza? Grab a parent, so she or he can get you access to the entire Xyza website for 30 days. We’re talking about building your own news library, access to our mobile app, audio stories about the world, and much more!